July 12, 1960: Etch a Sketch Goes on Sale

via wired
“The technology behind this children’s toy is both simple and complex. Simple, in that an internal stylus is used, manipulated by turning horizontal and vertical knobs to ‘etch a sketch’ onto a glass window coated with aluminum powder. Complex, because the Etch a Sketch employs a fairly sophisticated pulley system that operates the orthogonal rails that move the stylus around when the knobs are turned…”
Read the rest here, and view a gallery of images here. As a child, I was fascinated by the silver powder inside of Etch-a-Sketchs.

1930s London Zoo Sign Writer

Looks like he painted a mean ampersand!

via buzzfeed
See more photos of Pauline Locke’s grandfather working at the London Zoo in the 1930s, here. He is using a Mahl stick!

AntiMosquito Fumigator App

via swissmiss
“The app claims to keep mosquitos away as long as you keep it running in the background. It emits a high-pitched sound that humans don’t hear but mosquitos do and not appreciate…”
I wonder if this app works!?!

The Johnson Box

Frank Johnson

I didn’t realize that this technique of marketing had a name until I was working on a PowerPoint slide last week.

via wikipedia
“A Johnson Box is a box commonly found at the top of direct mail letters, containing the key message of the letter. The purpose of it is to draw the reader’s attention to this key message first, and hopefully grab their attention, enticing them to read the rest of the letter. The Johnson Box is named after direct marketer Frank Johnson, who is credited as having first used the Johnson Box to improve response to his offers for American Heritage magazine. He does not claim credit for creating the device, claiming to have only popularized it.” Johnson died at the age of 88 on March 6, 2001.
See an example of a letter, believed to be from 1959, that contains a Johnson Box at the top, here. More on Johnson can be found here.

Image of the Day: Mt. Nittany View

People for Bikes

via freezethawcycles
“...We’re all united by a shared passion: bikes. Bikes keep us healthy, carry us from point A to point B, save us from high gas prices, and make our air cleaner and our roads less congested. Bikes fill our lives with adventure and excitement, relaxing our minds and energizing our souls. Peopleforbikes.org is dedicated to channeling that passion to improve the future of bicycling. Our goal is to gather a million names of support, to speak with one, powerful voice—to make bicycling safer, more convenient and appealing for everyone. Simply put, we believe that life is far more enjoyable when it’s experienced on two wheels. We believe that by coming together, we can make our world a better place to ride.”
Find out more here. 

2-Foot Hand-Cut Playing Cards

via cmybacon
“Paper artist Emmanuel Jose is working on a year-long project hand-cutting a 2 foot tall deck of transformation playing cards out of paper, 1 card each week for 52 weeks. When his deck is completed, Emmanuel hopes to get it printed as a regular deck of cards and have a show to display his papercut designs...”
Follow his progress on his Tumblr blog, Ncyclopedia.

Loving Day: Anniversary of Loving vs. Virginia

Mildred and Richard Loving

via the daily heller
“Loving Day is a global movement to create a holiday that celebrates the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the United States. Mr. and Mrs. Loving were a young couple who were arrested for their interracial marriage, which was illegal in Virginia (as well as in most states at some point). The celebration was founded by Ken Tanabe, a designer, animator, and art director that works in motion, identity, print, experience design, and interactive media...”

Read the rest here. Visit the Loving Day site here.

Christopher Jonassen: Worn-out Fryingpans

via tasteologies
Christopher Jonassen’s investigation of worn-out fryingpans reminds me of looking at images of distant planets and other celestial bodies.
See the images here.

1910: Moisant and Mademoiselle Fifi

Another image of John B. Moisant and Mademoiselle Fifi, aviators, ca. 1910

Old English type body sizes

via typoretum
“Prior to 1737, little standardisation existed in the sizes of printing types and typefounders cast types to their own sizes and dimensions. In this year, the Parisian typefounder Pierre Simon Fournier introduced a new system that he derived from dividing two inches of the pre-metric French foot into one hundred and forty-four equal parts. Fournier gave the resulting unit a name – ‘points’ – and they measured 0.137 of the English inch, which is close to the present point system…”
Read the rest here. I love that the term Nonpareil is equivalent to 6 points.

Chop vs. Rubber Stamp

via printeresting
“Near the beautiful Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing, one might wander past this public sculpture resembling a enormous traditional Chinese chop. It looks as if a giant person just stamped her seal onto the sidewalk.

Not to be outdone by anyone, Cleveland, OH, is quick to point out that they own the largest rubber stamp. Although to my knowledge it has never used on a sidewalk or paper, this Claes Oldenburg sculpture does appear to be bigger…”
Original post here.
http://www.printeresting.org/2011/07/05/dispatches-from-china-really-big-chop

Linotype: The Film Interview Excerpts

via letterology
In honor of the 125th anniversary of the Linotype (July 3rd, 1886) the producers of Linotype: The Film have released a few teaser excerpts of interview footage.
Read the rest and watch a teaser here, and find more videos here.

Chili Peppers and Scoville Units

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T

via make
“…The Ghost pepper Bhut Jolokia (“bhut” means ghost in Hindi) has fallen from the top. Earlier this year, Australian pepper grower Marcel de Wit unveiled a super pepper, called the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, which tested hotter. Just two weeks ago came news reports that a Taiwanese farmer, Yeh Wu Shun, claimed his new cultivar is even hotter, scoring 1.5 million units on the Scoville scale of pepper hotness. (By comparison, a really hot jalapeno scores around 8,000 units.)”
Read the entire post here.

The Alamo was about Slavery

via delanceyplace
“In today’s excerpt from Delancey Place — as David Crockett entered into sparsely-populated Texas from Tennessee in 1836 hoping for riches from new land grants but unwittingly headed for martyrdom at the Alamo, white settlers there were chafing at the Mexican laws that prohibited slavery. While the causes of the Texas War for Independence were many, the principal cause was this prohibition of slavery. And of the ‘holy trinity’ of heroes at the Alamo — William Barrett Travis, James Bowie, and ‘Davy’ Crockett — both Travis and Bowie were land speculators and slave traders:

“Like many others making the same journey at the time, Crockett understood what he faced once he crossed the Red River into Texas and left the United States. He had to have been aware that, in the weeks before he departed, the animosity had increased between the government of Mexico and the American settlers, called Texians, in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas, The white colonists were becoming increasingly tired of living under Mexican rule, and they headed for war with hopes of forming their own separate republic. Many of these Anglos were illegal immigrants and did not abide by Mexican law. All citizens were required to join the Catholic Church, accept the language and laws of the governing country, and, by the late 1820s, observe the ban on the enslavement of human beings…”
Read the rest here.

Suffragette Surveillance, 1912

via retronaut
“In 1912, Scotland Yard detectives bought their first camera, to covertly photograph suffragettes. The pictures were compiled into ID sheets for officers on the ground.

When Evelyn Manesta, one of the Manchester suffragettes, refused to pose for a picture, a guard was brought in to restrain her in front of the camera. But when the photograph of Evelyn Manesta appeared, the arm had been removed. The photographer had acted on official instructions to doctor the photograph so that it would be less controversial...”

Images © National Portrait Gallery, London. Read the BBC article here. More images from the BBC can be found here.

1910: Mademoiselle Fifi Crosses the English Channel

via BlackandWTF
“In 1910, on the first airplane flight across the English Channel to carry a passenger, American aviator John Moisant flew from Paris to London accompanied by both his mechanic and his cat, named either Mademoiselle Fifi or Paree, depending on which newspaper you believe…”
Visit the link here.

Letterpress and Jack Daniels

via printeresting
Watch a video of Yee-Haw Industries making letterpress prints for their Tennessee pals Jack Daniels.
The video can be found here. I’m not a whiskey fan, but it is fascinating watching the carving of the plates, much like a stamp for a letterbox.

Firecracker Labels

via letterology

See more examples of early firecracker labels here, with links to even more.

Earworm of the Day: Sinnerman by Nina Simone

Nina Simone

I first heard this song in The Thomas Crowne Affair; you can watch the clip from the movie that used the song here. A search turned up this link on Nina Simone’s life — she was was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Here is a link to her official website.

Sinnerman (spelled as one word) is one of Nina Simone’s most famous songs and she recorded her definitive 10-minute-plus version on her 1965 album Pastel Blues. Simone learned the lyrics of this song in her childhood when it was used at revival meetings by her mother, a Methodist minister, to help people confess their sins. In the early days of her career during the early sixties, when she was heavily involved in the Greenwich Village scene, Simone often used the long piece to end her live performances.  Listen to her 10-minute version here.

Find the lyrics to Sinnerman here, and more about the song’s history here.